Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Visionary Indian
philosopher…
and relevant to the
21st Century
Opening Words
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
where knowledge is free;
where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
where words come out from the depth of truth;
where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action –
into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake. (Tagore)
Our God,
keep us this day clean and white,
free from all taint of evil thought or low desire.
Possess our hearts by that affection for your divine beauty and truth.
And give us joy in simple beauty and untarnished grace. (J. S. Hoyland –adapt.)
Chalice Lighting
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Prayers
When you command us to sing, it seems our hearts would break with pride.
All that is harsh and dissonant in our lives melt into one sweet harmony –
and our adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across the sea.
We know you take pleasure in our singing.
We know that only as a singer we come before your presence.
We touch, by the edge of the far-spreading wing of our song,
your feet, which we could never aspire to reach.
Drunk with the joy of singing we forget ourselves and call you friend, who is our God.
(Tagore)
Life of our life, we shall ever try to keep our bodies pure,
knowing that your living touch is upon the limbs of all.
We shall ever try to keep all untruths out from our thoughts,
knowing that you are that truth that has kindled the light of reason in our minds.
We shall ever try to drive all evils away from our hearts and keep our love in flower,
knowing that you have your seat in the inmost shrine of our hearts.
It shall be our endeavour to reveal you in our actions,
knowing it is your power that gives us strength to act. (Tagore)
(The following prayer may be read as a responsive prayer between two voices or
between worship leader and congregation)
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Meditation
(The following meditation may be used in many different ways. It can be read by the
worship leader, with plenty of silences; it can be printed in the order of service for
members of the congregation to read quietly to themselves- this gives an opportunity for
individuals to dwell on those passages that speak to them. Quiet, reflective music may
be used with or between the words.)
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it is never non-existent;
the entire world preserves and cherishes its chest
like a precious jewel in a necklace.’
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3. ‘Deliverance’ from Gitanjali
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom do you worship in this lonely
dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open your eyes and see your God is not
before you!
God is where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking
stones. God is with them in sun and in shower, and God’s garment is covered in dust.
Put off your holy mantle and even, like God, come down onto the dusty soil!
Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Even God has joyfully taken on the
bonds of creation and is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of your meditations and leave aside your flowers and incense! What harm is
there if your clothes become tattered and stained? Meet your God. Stand by your God in
toil and in the sweat of your brow. (Tagore)
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Three Readings on Tagore by other authors
The inner-seeking spirituality of India infused all of Tagore’s writing. He wrote in many
genres of the deep religious milieu of Hinduism. The values and core beliefs of the Hindu
scriptures permeated his work. His philosophical and spiritual thoughts transcend all
limits of language, culture, and nationality. In his writings, the poet and mystic takes us
on a spiritual quest and gives us a glimpse of the infinite in the midst of the finite, unity at
the heart of all diversity, and the Divine in all beings and things of the universe.
Tagore believed that ‘true knowledge is that which perceives the unity of all
things in God.’ Tagore, through his vast body of immortal literary works taught us that the
universe is a manifestation of God, and that there is no unbridgeable gulf between our
world and God’s, and that God is the one who can provide the greatest love and joy.
2. from W. B. Yeats
The verses in Gitanjali…as the generations pass, travellers will hum them on the
highway, and men rowing upon the rivers. Lovers, whilst they await one another, shall
find, in murmuring them, this love of God a magic gulf wherein their own more bitter
passion may bathe and renew its youth… The traveller in the red-brown clothes that he
wears that dust may not show upon him, the girl searching in her bed for the petals fallen
from the wreath of her royal lover, the servant of the bride awaiting the master’s
homecoming in the empty house, are images of the heart turning to God. Flowers and
rivers, the blowing of conch shells, the heavy rain of the Indian July, or the moods of that
heart in union or in separation; and a man sitting in a boat upon a river playing lute, like
one of those figures full of mysterious meaning in a Chinese picture, is God himself….’
Spirituality for Rabindranath Tagore is the dynamic principle that touches every aspect of
life and is the guiding principle that leads human existence from partiality to fullness.
Life’s journey, for Tagore, achieves its fulfilment through the creative interaction of an
artist or a poet, and not through renunciation of the world. He characterises his
spirituality as that of an artist.
This implies a change in one’s attitude to the world; one should move away from an
egoistic appropriation of the world, which results in experiences of the world as a source
of suffering and happiness, to an artistic experience of the world, where it is the source
of unconditional joy.
Integral to the spirituality of Tagore is the notion that everything is Brahman, and
Brahman is blissful. Tagore was also influenced by the traditions that focused on the
indwelling presence of God. Thus, in many of his writings Tagore stresses the need to
respond to the call from within, from the person ‘of the heart.’
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Benedictions
Master…
without thee we perish.
A few years, and the earth knoweth us no more,
we are dead for ever.
Here and now
we partake of thy sacrament of eternal life. (J. S. Hoyland – adapt.)
Hymns
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Rabindranath Tagore 1861-1941 : an overview
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta into a wealthy and prominent family, his
father, Debendranath, being a religious reformer and scholar. His mother, Sarada Devi,
died when he was only very young. The Tagores tried to combine traditional Indian
culture with Western ideas. Rabindranath, the youngest of the children, started to
compose poems at the age of eight and his first book, a collection of poems, was
published when he was 17.
Tagore was educated at various schools and places of learning. He attended University
College, London to study law, but left after a year - objecting to the English weather. He
married in 1883 and was father to two sons and three daughters. He moved to East
Bengal, now Bangladesh, and collected folk stories. Between 1893 and 1900 he wrote
seven volumes of poetry, writing mostly in the common language of the people, earning
criticism from some scholars. He wrote prose work too, novels and short stories, many of
the latter in a Bengali periodical.
In 1901 Tagore founded a school near Calcutta, Visva-Bharati, which sought to teach
both Indian and Western philosophy. In 1921 it became a university. He produced
poems, novels, short stories, a history of India, textbooks and lectures. In 1902 his wife
died, and within the next four years he lost two of his children.
For Western readers, Tagore’s most well-known work was Gitanjali - about divine and
human love. These poems he translated into English himself. His work was admired by
many Western writers and poets, including W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. In 1913 he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Much of Tagore’s ideas were drawn from the Upanishads and from his own beliefs that
God can be found through personal discovery and human service. He called for a new
world order based on trans-national values and ideas. He was politically active in India
and supported Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to British colonialism but avoided a narrow
nationalism. In 1915 he was awarded a knighthood but surrendered it in 1919 in protest
at the Massacre of Amritsar where British troops shot dead over 400 Indian protesters.
His version of politics was not widespread and he retired into solitude. He nonetheless
travelled widely and sought to spread his views about the need to unite East and West.
At the age of 70 Tagore took up painting and continued his interest in composing music,
setting hundreds of poems to music. One of his own songs, “Our Golden Bengal”
became the national anthem of Bangladesh. He died in 1941 leaving behind an
incomplete collection of his works filling 30 substantial volumes.
For Unitarians he will be remembered for his liberal and inclusive religious ideas. He was
a member of the Brahmo Samaj, a liberal Hindu movement with some Western ideas,
and he had knowledge of Western religious liberalism as suggested by his visit to
Manchester College, Oxford during his visit to England. It is certainly now the time to
reconsider his contribution and to find a way of integrating Tagore’s insights into a
modern Unitarian spirituality.
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Tagore Quotes
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.
By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
Clouds come into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my
sunset sky.
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has
come.
Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first
time as a newborn child that has no name.
Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for his was born in another time.
Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.
Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of humanity.
Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
From the solemn gloom of the temple children run out to sit in the dust, God watches
them play and forgets the priest.
I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go
through another door – or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how
dark the present.
THANKS The GA Worship Panel would like to thank Rev. Dr. Vernon Marshall for
providing this worship resource. It is also be available on the GA web site.
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